President Trump campaigned on rebuilding our military and refocusing its mission on military matters rather than on political correctness and voracious down-sizing. He also campaigned on destroying ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism.

The Air Force could recall up to 1,000 retired pilots after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at addressing what the Pentagon has described as an “acute shortage of pilots.”

The order, which Trump signed Friday, amends an emergency declaration signed by George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Under current law, the Air Force is limited to recalling just 25 pilots. The order signed by Trump temporarily removes that cap for all branches of the military.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Gary Ross, said in a statement that the Air Force is currently “short approximately 1,500 pilots of its requirements.”

“We anticipate that the Secretary of Defense will delegate the authority to the Secretary of the Air Force to recall up to 1,000 retired pilots for up to 3 years,” Ross said. “The pilot supply shortage is a national level challenge that could have adverse effects on all aspects of both the government and commercial aviation sectors for years to come.”

In August, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson confirmed that the service was short 1,555 pilots of its requirements, including 1,211 fighter pilots.

We’re short pilots, so the president remedies the problem. Seems simple enough.

Comments

yeah, it’s weird they’ve focused on pilots… the EO covers all of the services for officers. I’m thinking there’s a chance some of the senior officers that were forced out for upsetting the former administration might be brought back through this. A backdoor way to get some of those good officers back in uniform. Just a guess.

Expansion of the VOLUNTARY Return to Active Duty Program…key word voluntary. The AF also is sweetening the pot…BUT it’s the darft! (sic)

The Air Force is responding to the pilot shortage with various incentive programs to keep officers in uniform longer, including “a 100 percent promotion opportunity” program launching later this year. There’s also an aviator retention pay bonus worth up to $350,000 over a 10-year term.

Still, pay isn’t always a deciding factor for pilots to leave the military. Family considerations and longer deployments also factor into decisions.

Koscheski said the military has increasingly offered retention initiatives that focus on work-life balance and quality of life.

“We’re looking to provide more time for the air crew member to have with their family and some work time at home,” he said, before cautioning that “there’s limits to that based on mission requirements.”

One thing many civilians do not realize is that if you are in certain MOS the military can recall you if needed for decades. There were some guys in their 50s and 60s who were recalled right after 911.

As far as these pilots go, they received flight training worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and have hundreds of hours of air time that allowed them to walk out the door and instantly be hired by virtually any airline in the world at top salary. If they are recalled, they will be under the same terms as Reserve officers – your company has to hold your job without penalty. Many companies also continue to foot the bill for lots of benefits. This is just part of what you sign up for when you choose to be a pilot rather than a grunt.

“As far as these pilots go, they received flight training worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and have hundreds of hours of air time that allowed them to walk out the door and instantly be hired by virtually any airline in the world at top salary.”

Wah.

You want to recoup the training? Why not keep them longer than the current terms of enlistment? What is so hard about that?

Or is it you, as a taxpayer, want to cheap out and be able to have access to incredibly valuable skills without paying for it, and instead foisting the cost off on the person themselves? When a corporation tries to to that everyone screams, but it’s ok if the government does it eh?

Right now any recall will be voluntary. But the original terms of enlistment are that you are never retired, just on inactive duty, and may be recalled whenever you’re needed. (That’s why inactive-duty military officers, unlike retired civil servants, need congressional approval to get any kind of income or reward from foreign governments.) Those are the terms every one of them signed up under.

A number of reports have been published about a shortage of operational aircraft, parts, and technicians since the Repubs came up with the brilliant idea of sequestration of defense spending while cutting nothing else. It is always hard to reconcile the reporting and determine how they are going to utilize all the pilots that they may take back.

For decades there has always been a “looming shortage of pilots” on the horizon, yet pilot pay in the private sector has been declining at major airlines in real terms and relatively flat elsewhere. Starting pay absolutely sucks and it takes a long time to make good money with the big airlines, and that career just isn’t what it was. The pay peaked in the late 80’s as did the quality of life issues. There has never been a time in my adult life in which being a pilot in the private sector or military was a better career path than being an attorney in the military and private sector, which explains why I am an attorney and a pilot on the side. If they would pay me to fly F-22’s and Trump cut all the political correctness bullshit, I’d go back in as a pilot.

If the armed services put our the call and offered the right kind of money, they could get all kinds of pilots with civil sector commercial experience and finish and type train them on military flying. But I infer that what the services really want to do is get back the trained and experienced pilots since creating military pilots is so expensive and has a long lead time.

The whole “back door draft” theme is pure baloney contrived by whiners that thought that the would collect the pay in the Guard and Reserves forever without ever earning it the hard way. They knew or should have known how the deal worked the day they signed up and started taking the pay and the GI Bill benefits. Everyone knows that he can be recalled under national security emergencies, it is not secret, and is actually an incentive to make sure one resigns his commission when he leaves.

have not read the documents but how many subject to recall are inactive reserve? its not a draft, its exactly what people signed up for.
somewhat related, got hurt in germany near end of my tour and was immediately (within weeks of ETS date) put into VA system when contract for active duty ended.
2 or so months later desert storm happened. va would not grant waiver for me to go back.
then on 9-11 va also would not grant waiver.
in retrospect probably was best for all, would have mentally ruined me if my injuries and restrictions caused someone to get hurt.

grr hit submit on accident.
was also going to say 3 weeks after VA put me on disabled service connected the inactive reserve stuff kicked in and I was supposed to report to a location 100 miles away.
va said no. reserve station said yes. months of paperwork crap before final decision was no.
paperwork just took time to catch up.
ahh memories……

Yes and no. For enlisted Navy, anyone retiring from active duty between the 20 and 30 year mark is transferred to the fleet reserve. At the 30 year mark you get sent your retirement papers. (I have mine.) In the fleet reserve SECNAV can recall you at any time. After 30, it takes congressional action to do so involuntarily. I’ve talked to retiree’s in other branches, and apparently when they retire, they retire. They don’t understand the fleet reserve thing.

Unless things have changed, when an officer when he leaves the service can resign his commission, or resign from active duty. If he simply resigns from active duty, he can be recalled at any time depending on the needs of the service. And again, unless things have changed a lot, a retired officer can always be recalled to active duty.

Returning to active duty voluntarily seems to be an ad hoc proposition. When various battleships over the years were recommissioned, 60 year old gunners mates returned to active duty to man them and train the youngsters how to operate a 16 inch gun turret.

The Army has the Ready Reserve and the Stand-by Reserve. The RR requires one week-end a month and one month a year active status. SR doesn’t. Anyone who leaves the Army under Honorable conditions is available for SR – if Congress activates it. But only then.

the Army also has the Retired Reserve, which is where i went after i got my 20 year letter…and you stay in that until you hit 60, when you go “Retired”.

in theory, they could call me back, but i’d never come close to passing a recall physical, and i have no whiz-bang MOS’s, so, unless the Inmun Gun or the PLA start landing at Venice Beach, i’m not going anywhere.

The bottom line is that the President can recall any veteran up to age 60. He’d have to jump thru some hoops to do it, but the basic authority is there.
This is just another of a long line of examples of the Left”s total ignorance of all things military.

those who serve in the United States Military can retire as early as age 37. Individuals can literally start collecting a huge pension check along with a host of other benefits in their thirties.

for people who have just reached a level of maturity to make decent decisions, to be given incentives to serve wisely is a need we have now.
childhood and irresponsibility seems to be stretching well into the mid 20s and not to take advantage of these ‘elderly (mid 30s) military trained pilots would be a crying (sobbing) shame.

to bad that the public judges (and univ perfressers) who serve for life aren’t forced into retirement – they are the ones who are destroying our nation with their immature decisions.

For those who don’t know, it used to be, and probably still is, that ‘half-pay’ retirement after 20 years was actually about one-third pay because it’s only half of base pay; a lot of military pay is in the form of ‘allowances’ that aren’t included in retirement calculations. And full pay wasn’t all that much, considering the (sometimes) 80-hour weeks.

For most personnel who voluntarily separate from the volunteer military, especially those with certain rank levels and certain specialties, there is a period of time during which they can be recalled to active duty and assigned to operational assignments. For those who retire, it is usually around six years. However, in the event of a declared war and certain national emergencies, anyone can be recalled who has specific skills [doctors were caught in this catch-22 following 9/11].

But, the mere existence of the EO does not mean that anyone will be called up. What it does is give the military branches the authority to identify and locate desirable personnel and set up the process to return them to active duty quickly, if the need arises. Though it does send the signal that the POTUS is not planning on backing down where certain threatening state actors are concerned. Let’s see if they are smarter than the Democrats and listen to what the man is telling them.

If Trump announced a final cure for cancer, the left would have the same reaction. So would the very sick and pathetic john mccain, and moronic commentators like bill crystal.

Truth means nothing to these types – it’s all about the power they’re so desperate to regain, and regain it for nefarious purposes. If it takes the degradation of our great Republic into a banana republic, so be it. So long as they are the top bananas.

Having been a USMC pilot and an airline pilot I can vouch for this being a real threat to the airlines. If they were to lose 1,000 pilots they would be devastated. They are already short of pilots and the pipeline is very slow either civilian or military. If any of you here have young children, about to enter college, they would have a golden future if they went into flight school training. Even someone under the age of 25 who has the time and money to get the required flight and instrument licenses would be on a great path to have a lifetime well-paying job. obama started the destruction of the warrior spirit within the military and pilots are cut from the same cloth as all other patriots. It may take a push from Trump to persuade young people to serve their country. Money is not the only inducement.

Remember how Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation/classified e-mail debacle, and so many other scandals of the last administration? IF anyone dared to say anything, no matter how benign about any of these scandals, then the media would jump all over them for being racist or worst. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a news media and pubic that had a brain and reported things as they are instead of being so obscenely partisan to such an absurd extent?

I would like to see our nation restart the Military Draft requiring EVERY able bodied man/woman to serve a minimum of 2 years serving their nation. This is undo the damage done by their weak minded parents and instill pride in their country. They will grow up and mature being better adults and being able to discern the Truth & Facts from the lib-left demoCrap BS !!

Speaking as a former SNCO, this is the last thing our military needs. I had enough trouble managing people that wanted to be there. I can think of nothing more damaging to morale and readiness than to have to continually deal with the attitude and destructiveness of someone there against their will.

Even retiring after 20+ years in the military isn’t actually retiring. Retirees are still in inactive status until age 60. This is entirely plausible for any military career field. Thing thing is the previous CSAF booted so many people and took away so many benefits that a lot of people left on their own or were forced out. Pilots were hit especially hard. There is a severe pilot shortage. And Obama crippled the military. There is certainly a need for 45 year old trained pilots to come back in if they want to.

My dad flew B-24s during WWII in the South Pacific, including against the Japanese home islands. On August 6, 1945, while flying a mission over Japan he witnessed the mushroom cloud from Hiroshima. After the war he was packing for law school in 1948 when he received word that Harry Truman had recalled him as a multi-engine-rated pilot to fly in something called the Berlin Airlift, where he flew 167 sorties. He never regretted a day of it.

A good friend of ours was recalled for Desert Storm – 4 Star General….. she was 76 years old. I begged to drive her to her appointment to report for duty….. she just laughed a made a phone call to an unlisted number at the Pentagon.

In the meantime, my son can be recalled for several years and he’s well aware of it….

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